


Bloom

by notablyindigo



Series: It Has Its Costs [3]
Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, death mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-07
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2018-02-07 21:14:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1914084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notablyindigo/pseuds/notablyindigo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two people pay their respects to Gerald Castoro this year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bloom

**Author's Note:**

> joanbell fest day 6 prompts: black and white, hair flipping, injury  
> also fulfills Watson's Woes prompt 6 (for me?: a botanical gift)

They’ve been together for almost six months when the anniversary of Gerald Castoro’s death rolls around. He can tell weeks in advance that there’s something amiss, and it’s when he realizes the date that he puts two and two together. He doesn’t ask about it, doesn’t mention the occasion on the off chance that she’s forgotten or decided not to observe the day that year, but the night before she comes home to their apartment (their apartment, something he’s not quite done marveling over) with a bouquet of pink carnations in tow and he knows that the ritual holds.

There is this year, however, a small break with tradition. It’s as they’re getting ready for bed—him flossing his back molars and her combing out the tangles that the wind had sewn into her hair—that she mentions her plans for the next morning. Marcus takes a mouthfull of water, swishes, waits. 

"If you’re not busy, I was wondering if you’d…" 

He spits pinkish water into the sink, drives off his mouth on his shirtsleeve, and reaches over to kiss the crown of her head. 

"Of course," he says, and she leans into him, her nose skimming the spot where his carotid leaps against the skin of his throat. 

\- - - 

They prop the flowers against Mr. Castoro’s headstone and stand together on the grassy hill overlooking the city, their fingers twined together. She tells him the story of her uncle’s cautionary words to her the day before she began medical school: that an   
engineer who makes a mistake breaks a machine, while a doctor who makes a mistake ends a life. The brisk breeze tosses her hair across her face and over her shoulders, and he refrains from mentioning the engineer’s mistake—the faulty airbag—that cost his father his life. To Marcus, it isn’t that black and white, but he’s beginning to understand why it is for Joan.

She’s lost in her thoughts on the walk back to where they’ve parked the car (legally, on a corner several blocks away). Silence settles over them, but Marcus doesn’t mind the quiet. He feels as though he’s been given a glimpse of something sacred, a window into the world Joan occupied in what seems like another life. 

It feels trite to say ‘thank you’—trite, and a bit inappropriate too—but he finds himself longing for a way to acknowledge this intimate thing she’s shared with him. Not even Holmes had been with her to the cemetery on the anniversary; Marcus has to work hard to not feel slightly gleeful over this. 

They pass by a bodega, and Marcus pauses, his eye drawn by the many kinds of brightly colored flowers sitting in buckets out front under the sagging green canopy. He pauses, plucks a bouquet of blue hydrangeas out of the swill of water and decaying vegetation, and holds it out to her. 

"For you," he says, smiling. She kisses him right there on the sidewalk.


End file.
